Graduation

Thursday, June 2 was the last day of school.  They scheduled the 8th grade graduation the same time the little kids got out of school.  I don't think I was the only one who had conflicting schedules that day.  Thanks to a couple of friends, I had my others taken care of so Ethan and I could go watch Christina's graduation.

When I got there and got a program, I noticed there was a little asterisk by Christina's name.  Looked down at the bottom of the page and saw that those students were receiving the Presidential Academic Award.  I wasn't sure what that was but there were only 8 out of 133 (I think) who were receiving it.  The 8th graders weren't allowed to look at the program before so they had no idea until their name was called.  

I recorded the whole part so I don't have pictures of this part.  I'm attempting to upload to facebook if anyone wants to see it there.

One of the Assistant Principals described what a student had to do to receive the award.  There are two levels.  To get the gold level, a student had to have received straight As for 6th, 7th, and 8th grades and receive high marks (commended) on the statewide testing (TAKS tests).  To receive the silver level, the students were allowed to have 1 B in the 3 years.  2 students received the silver, 6 received the gold.

Christina received the Gold level.

I am so proud of her.  I cried.  Each student received a signed letter from President Obama, a nice certificate, and a pin.

Then it was time for the graduation.

Here's Christina shaking the Principal's hand.

After graduation, the students had to say goodbye.  They'll be going to probably 5 different (or more if moving) high schools.  We filled out the out of district transfer papers for Christina but we're not sure which high school she will go to until July.

Christina had a hard time saying goodbye to friends.  That's never fun.

Here she is with her certificate from the President.

I made a huge deal about it and we all went out to eat dinner and I surprised Christina with a cookie cake (she likes these better than cakes).

I don't feel like I can do justice to describe how I feel about Christina.  She's been through a lot with us through the years and she still is able to smile, have a positive attitude and achieve wonderful things through it all.  I am so proud of all of her hard work.  She's such a good student and she did it while taking all the pre-AP/honors classes she could.  Some of the students were in regular classes.  She's such an amazing daughter and I feel so blessed to have her call me mom.